


All the Things I Thought I Knew

by Wherethereissmoak



Series: MJ Queen Adventures [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Olicity Kid - Freeform, Time Travel, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-08-22 08:31:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8279563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wherethereissmoak/pseuds/Wherethereissmoak
Summary: An archer named MJ travels back in time with her speedster friend and her vigilante boyfriend travel back in time to stop another villain with speed force powers from wiping out Barry Allen and Oliver Queen. Though the daughter of Felicity Smoak and Oliver Queen knows that interacting too much with her parents in the past could be dangerous, she can't resist spending time with them in a different setting. And getting to know the younger versions of her parents helps her to understand them in new ways.





	1. Timey Wimey Headache

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so I got the idea for this piece during last year's crossover because I loved the teams working together. But then I started reading the amazing story Forever is Composed of Nows by Janis (@so-caffeinated) and Bre (@dust2dust34) and as a very new person to fanfiction, I didn't want anyone to think I was copying them with the future kid story (even though mine is a grown up kid). But since then, I've read several other future kid fics so I'm happy to know that so many people can do something different with the idea. :) 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. This is my first multi-chapter fic. No beta, so all mistakes are mine.

MJ sat up with a start. Her head hurt like hell, and the voices arguing in the room next to her were not helping one bit. She took in her surroundings. It looked like she was in the med bay at Star Labs, but for the life of her, she couldn’t put together why. Besides her headache, she had a pain in her arm and looked down to see it bandaged.

She laid back in the bed and closed her eyes, trying to piece together the last day. Straining her ears she could hear Barry and Bart arguing – what else was new…and her dad joining in the fray. And he was using his growly voice. Not good.

Wait…Bart? That could only mean one thing. Either she had just arrived back in her own time, or she was in another. She let out a groan. She had too much on her plate lately to add time travel into the mix. While she loved adventures with Bart, they usually involved more trouble than they were worth.

A few years ago, Bart Allen had arrived on her doorstep from the future. For some reason unbeknownst to her, he wanted her help on one of his missions that involved him traveling to the past. And one mission had turned into many missions.  He had one rule – he could only take her to the past (no glimpses into the future for her) and only within her lifetime (it was easier on him for some reason not have to carry someone further back than that).

At first, she was hesitant to trust him, but she had run his bloodwork herself and he was indeed the grandson of Barry Allen, who she trusted with her life. He even stopped in and introduced himself to Barry and Iris (his grandmother), which was really trippy. It took Barry a long time to recover from the shock.

Bart would never tell her why it was important that she was the one who helped him. He always got a little cagey and dodged the question. She figured that it had something to do with her future, and Barry had always lectured that knowing your future was always a bad idea, especially when you were traveling through time. Knowing your future could cause you to dangerously change things, or sometimes have a broken heart if they did. No future timeline was set in stone.

Barry warned them not to interact too much with their family or friends in the past, because any changes could create an alternate timeline that they never could fix, but Bart was always insistent that he and his grandfather’s relationship was set in stone and Barry would always be his guidepost in whatever year he landed. It was kind of sweet, actually.

And that’s’ why she wasn’t surprised that she was at Star Labs, although she had no idea when. She looked around the room and noticed the older tech, so she definitely wasn’t in her timeline. She noticed a tablet on the med table next to her and reached for it.

She gasped when she saw the date – January 5, 2017.

“Bartholomew Allen!” She yelled, making herself wince from the pain in her head.

Bart slid the glass door open and looked in hesitantly. “Hey, MJ, how are you feeling?”

“In pain, and I have no idea why, and I also want to know why the hell you lied to me?”

The young man looked surprised. She could see Barry, Caitlin and Cisco peeking over his shoulders.

“Lied to you? About what?”

She hopped out of bed and drew in a sharp breath at the pain her action caused. “You said that I could only travel within my lifetime.”

“I did – so what’s the lie?”

“It’s January, 2017. I’m not alive yet!”

“You must be – I would have felt it if I tried to take you outside your timeline. It feels like a jolt.”

She shook her head at him. “My parents weren’t even together in January 2017. They got together a month or so later. My birthday’s in the fall.”

The three scientists behind Bart exchanged confused looks at their conversation, so she grabbed his arm and pulled him closer. The three took the hint and moved away from the entrance to the room. This gave her a clean line of site to Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak.

Russian vodka – it suddenly dawned on her.

“Oh Frak…and also…ew…just ew,” she said.

“What is it?” Bart asked, also looking at the couple, confused.

“Let’s just say, you were right, you did bring me back within my timeline. Very, very early in my timeline. Like hours into my timeline,” she explained, feeling nauseous – and not from her head injury. “I think I’m going to hurl.”

“What do you mean? You’re right, your parents clearly aren’t together, see she doesn’t even have on her ring,” Bart said.

“Well, my parents told me they had a night together over a shared bottle of Russian vodka about a month or so before they officially reunited as a couple – but I just never realized that I was the result,” MJ said.

Bart looked between her and Felicity in shock.

“So your mom…right now…is…uh…”

“Pregnant with me? Fairly sure. Ew. Ew. Ew. And a conversation I had with parents yesterday, in my time, that is, is suddenly making a whole lot more sense.”

In her over-excitement, a wave of pain coursed through her head, making MJ dizzy. She stumbled back and sat down on the bed again.

“You doing OK?” Bart asked.  The normally-joking teenager looked much more serious than usual. He also looked extremely tired.

“What the hell happened, Bart? My brain is all fuzzy and I can’t remember much,” she closed her eyes and leaned back on the pillow.

“Cobalt Blue – he went further back than ever this time,” Bart said with a sigh. “He came back to now, when my grandparents are barely together and my other…well anyway, it isn’t good.”

“I thought we took care of him when he came to our time, trying to destroy Barry and Iris’ kids,” MJ said with a frown. “Hell of a battle, but I thought Wally took him out.”

“Well thinks are kind of complicated with time travel,” Bart said. MJ muttered “timey wimey crap” under her breath before he continued.

“Yes, The Flash, er, Wally took him out in your time, but Cobalt Blue has been traveling through time for years trying to find an opportunity to destroy Barry and all his descendants,” Bart said.

MJ sighed again…figuring out all of this time travel stuff was exhausting.

“So why am I injured?”

“Well, when we got here, Blue was already engaged in a fight with Barry and Oliver. He had a partner this time, someone traveling with him. It made me really grateful that I insisted that we bring Matt along for this adventure,” Bart said with a frown.

MJ had been surprised when Bart had suggested Matt come on this time trip – normally the young man acted coldly toward her boyfriend. He was also a vigilante, wearing a black mask and training in Gotham under the watchful eye of Batman and Nightwing. She figured the reason Bart didn’t care for him was something she didn’t want to know. Their relationship was in a great place right now, well as great it could be under certain circumstances, and she didn’t want any future stuff that may or may not come true to come along and ruin it.

“The man with Cobalt Blue had a gun to Oliver’s head while Blue and Barry were having a pretty heavy handed battle,” Bart explained. “You arrived and shot an arrow into the man’s shoulder, and that made him fire wildly everywhere. You took one to the arm and must have hit your head when you fell.”

“So where is Blue?” she asked, rubbing her forehead as if trying to bring the memories back.

“We don’t know, he got away when we showed up. He’s still in this timeline because I can feel him using the speed force, but I have no idea where he is. He’s probably licking his wounds and preparing to strike again,” Bart said.

“So what about the other guy? The one that was with Cobalt Blue?”

Bart looked a little nervous.

“Well, they put him in one of the cells here, and well…Matt was very persuasive and they let him question him,” Bart said.

MJ’s breath caught.

“Alone? What were you thinking? You know that he is probably pissed that I was injured? You can’t leave him with the one who caused it!”

Ignoring her pain, MJ lept up and drug herself toward the door with a groan.

“I was busy trying to explain to my parents who I was and trying to keep from your parents who you were, seeing as how they are not together now and telling them may mess with the timeline,” Bart said. This triggered a flash of a memory in the back of MJ’s head, but she pushed it aside and ran out the door.

She ran past Team Flash and Team Arrow toward the Star Labs holding cell, ignoring their calls of confusion and concern. She heard footsteps behind her, so she knew someone was following, but she ignored them…her eyes on her boyfriend who was busy beating the crap out of his prisoner.

MJ felt a woosh of air as Barry ran past her and tried to pull Matt off the prisoner, but he was thrown easily by her boyfriend’s super strength. Oliver got ahead of her too and had similar results.

“Matty!” She screamed. He glanced her way, and she could see his eyes had turned red…he was in full rage now and talking him down with just her voice wouldn’t this time.

She walked forward with her hand outstretched to touch his cheek, and both Barry and Oliver objected. She ignored them and kept walking forward. His heavy breathing slowed a bit when she finally made contact with his skin. “It’s OK, baby, I’m here…just calm down. Just look into my eyes and breathe. That’s it, baby. I’m OK, I’m safe. You can take a breath.”

Matt’s breathing settled and his eyes returned to their natural brown state. “MJ?” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I did it again…didn’t I? It’s just you were hurt and he did it and I couldn’t…”

“Shh…it’s ok,” MJ sat on the floor and pulled his head down so it was resting on her chest. They sat like that for several minutes. It took a lot of coaxing, but Matt understood the team’s hesitance to have him walking around the lab. She convinced him to stay in one of the cells so they could figure out what Blue was up to next. While she was calming him down, Bart had explained to them how Matt had been dosed with a new strain of Mirakuru that there had been no cure found for yet. He sometimes flew off the edge, but MJ was the only one who could calm him down.

“And your team in the future is OK with him…out there fighting with you?” She had heard Oliver ask. _Oh you have no idea how much you disapprove, Dad_ , she thought with a chuckle.

They all settled into the lab. Felicity and Cisco got to work setting up scans to try to find where the evil speedster might be hiding out.

“So why is this guy after me?” Barry asked.

“I can’t really explain everything, but let’s just say he’s after you and all your descendants, which obviously includes me,” Bart said. “He and I have gone several rounds in the last few months.”

“He’s totally trying to Terminator you,” Cisco said in awe, munching on some candy from a bowl on his desk. “Take out your nemesis by taking out the parents…or the grandparents in your case. Classic.”

“But why did he seem to also have it out for me?” Oliver asked.

Bart looked down and shuffled his feet. “Probably knew that you would help Barry and wanted to take you out too,” he said.

The team launched into a discussion on the best plan to take out the evil speedster that was making MJ’s headache worse. She sank into the closest chair and leaned her head on her hand to give it some support.

“So, an archer, huh?” She heard Oliver ask next to her, making her jump.

“Yeesh! They really did teach you ninja sneaking skills in the League of Assassins,” MJ said and Oliver raised an eyebrow at the fact that she knew that information. She tried to cover with humor. “You should put a bell on yourself or something, when you aren’t out in the field. I mean, you would kind of look weird walking around as Oliver Queen with a bell on you, but it would really help people know you were in the room. Not that people always need to know…never mind…I’m going to stop talking now.”

Oliver’s mouth quirked up in the corners and he sat down in the chair next to her. God, he looked so young. It was kind of unnerving. 

“Are you on my team?”

“Your team?”

“Team Arrow. I assume because of your archery, among other things, that you are probably part of my team in the future, or at least trained by me.”

“Um…you could say that,” she said, starting to feel nervous. People had always tagged her mother as the smartest one in their relationship, but her father had an exceptional way of reading people to get the truth. It had really sucked when she was a teenager.  She (not entirely successfully) tried to stifle a groan as Felicity walked over to them.

“I never thanked you for saving Oliver’s life tonight,” Felicity said. “And I never introduced myself. Actually, none of us did, because we were so busy being amazed by Bart and worried about your super grumpy boyfriend. I’m Felicity Smoak.”

She held out her hand and MJ stared at it for a minute, but did not reciprocate the handshake.

“Can you, uh, hang on for a minute…I have to ask someone something and we can continue this conversation.”

Felicity and Oliver looked at her in surprise as she jumped up, grabbed Cisco and Bart by the arm and drug them into the medical bay.  She had to get some answers on this timey wimey stuff before she had a breakdown.


	2. Congratulations?!?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ and Matt have a talk. Oliver's intuition proves correct.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied and said this would be up Thursday or Friday. So enjoy it a couple of days early! Woo hoo! 
> 
> I don't have a beta so all mistakes are mine. Also I wrote this while my kids are running around like lunatics due to fall break, so there are probably plenty of mistakes. :)

“Hey future girl, easy, what has you freaked out so much?” Cisco asked.

“Well, I wanted to pick your brain, because you’ve seen like every time travel and sci-fi movie ever,” MJ said.

“It’s true…continue,” Cisco said.                   

“So has Barry, your Barry, ever encountered himself during his time travels?”

“He’s seen himself a few times and it didn’t mess up the timeline or anything if that’s what you are wondering,” Cisco said. “Why, are you worried about bumping into yourself?”

“Well, I’m kind of in that room,” she said sheepishly.

Cisco looked through the glass window into the lab, confused. “I don’t see any kids in there, and you probably would be a kid now, right?”

“Not a kid…and you won’t be able to see me,” MJ said. “I haven’t been born yet.”

She saw it dawn on Cisco.

“Oh! Ew!” he said.

“That’s what I said!” MJ replied.

“So who is the baby mamma? Caitlin? Iris? Felicity? Ew, this is so weird…” Cisco narrowed his eyes as he studied all the girls on the team.

“Stop looking at them, you are going to make them suspicious…it’s Felicity,” MJ said.

“Felicity!” Cisco studied MJ for a minute. “Yeah, I can see it, now that I know. So who’s the baby daddy?”

“Please don’t call her baby mamma and him baby daddy, it’s creepy,” Bart said. “And her dad is Oliver.”

“Oh that would explain the whole archery thing. Like father like daughter,” Cisco said. “So why aren’t we telling them the happy news?”

“Well, it may mess up the timeline,” Bart said. “Since they aren’t together right now, we don’t want to do or say anything that may mess them up in the future.”

“Actually, I’m not worried about that at all,” MJ said and Bart looked at her in surprise. “This actually explains a conversation I had the other day with my parents. I thought they were acting weird, but they must remember that I did this. And some of the things they said indicated that they knew who I was in the past. When I was talking to them, the conversation was very strange, but it makes a lot of sense now.”

“So what are you worried about?” Cisco asked.

“You know how in Sci-Fi movies, you can’t touch your past self because you could cancel each other out? Something about not existing on the same plain? Do you think that could really be true? And what does that mean if I’m an, um, fetus? Do I need to stay away from Felicity?”

“Whoa, this is such a trippy conversation, and I’m so here for it,” Cisco said with glee. “I mean, there is no real scientific way to know for sure what would happen if two versions of yourself would touch in one timeline without risking someone’s existence.”

“How about you just avoid any physical contact with Felicity for now,” Bart suggested.

Their conversation was interrupted by alarms going off at the computer system.

“It looks like we got a lead on your speedster,” Felicity said. “He’s in a warehouse on the east side of town.”

MJ reached for her bow, and Oliver placed his hand on top of hers.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“I’m getting ready to go help take Cobalt Blue down!”

“You’re injured. Why don’t you sit this one out?”

MJ huffed angrily.

“Because he’s a tough bastard and it’s going to take all of us to take him down. Plus, you and Barry are the targets, not me.”

“You won’t do any good to us unless you can get back to your full strength. Sit this one out for now. If you are on Team Arrow, I’m guessing I’m your leader of some sort, so you must already be in the habit of taking orders from me.”

MJ glared at him.

“You’re a bit wiser in my time.”

Oliver tried and failed to keep his lips from quirking up at that. Felicity tilted her head at the two of them, as if trying to figure something out. MJ knew a conversation with the two of them was forthcoming, but they had to take care of Cobalt Blue first.

Bart put his hand on her shoulder and said softly: “You should probably make sure Matt’s OK. I got them this time, you don’t have to worry. I’ll make sure we get out of there if we can’t handle it.”

She reluctantly put down her bow and watched her father, Barry and Bart head out to take out the fastest speedster and most vicious speedster she had ever seen.

MJ sat outside the containment cell that held her boyfriend and watched him sleep for a while. She wished she could curl up beside him, but she knew that despite her injuries, going to sleep would be nearly impossible.

Still, she craved the comfort of his arms so she turned off the cell’s barrier and slid herself into a snuggle position with Matt. She heard his breathing change indicating he was awake, but he stayed silent and held her for so long she dozed off. When she woke again, they were in the same position, and he was rubbing her back with his face buried in her hair.

“How bad was it this time?” he whispered, not lifting his head.

She buried her face deeper into his chest, not wanting the reality of the world to crash into her snuggle cocoon yet.

“MJ?”

“You beat his face in…almost killed him. I almost couldn’t calm you down,” she said quietly, hating how he stilled and stiffened at her words. She leaned back enough so she could look up at his face, knowing she would only see pain and regret there. She reached up to cup his cheek and he leaned into her touch, as if she was his lifeline to the world.

“What if you hadn’t made it in time?”

“We don’t need to think about that, baby, I made it. I will always make it,” she whispered.

“You may not always be,” he said with a groan as he sat up. “And who knows if you will always be able to calm me down? What if when you reach for me someday and I break your arm?”

“You’re not going to pull the old ‘I’m too dangerous to be with you’ bullshit on me again? Because we already went through that fight. If I recall, I used my loud voice and I won.”

His lips quirked a bit, and MJ knew that she had made a chink in his armor of self-loathing. She stood up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Have you gotten over yourself?”

“If you mean do I have full control of my facilities, yes,” Matt said. “So what’s the deal, here? I thought we could go back in your lifetime and from the looks of it…your parents are not together.”

“Yeah, I’m in there,” she said.

“In where?” Matt said.

“In my mom…she’s totally preggers. And I don’t think my dad knows about it yet,” MJ said.

Matt looked dumbfounded by this. He shook his head. “Timetravel, man. It’s kind of ridiculous.”

She giggled, glad to have her boyfriend back. “Totally.”

“It’s completely making sense now – why your dad hates me so much…in our time, I mean,” Matt said.

“He doesn’t hate you,” MJ said, not entirely convincingly.

“Yeah sure, whatever you say. But now I know he probably remembers this time and he totally knew that I was boinking his daughter from the moment I met him,” he said.

“Ew, don’t say ‘boinking.’ It sounds weird,” MJ said, drawing a laugh from him.

“So are you going to tell them?”  he asked.

“I think that I am,” MJ said hesitantly.

“That’s not a good idea, MJ, we talked about this,” Bart said from the doorway. “If you talk to your parents, you could change the timeline in ways that you could never imagine.”

“I have reason to believe that’s not the case,” MJ told him, not wanting to explain further until she could give it some thought. “Besides, they are getting pretty suspicious. My parents aren’t stupid.”

Bart looked like he was going to object, but MJ cut him off.

“Hey, what are you doing back here so soon? Did Cobalt Blue get away again?”

“He wasn’t there. We searched the entire place. He had been there, but he was long gone by the time we arrived.”

MJ groaned in frustration. “So what are we going to do next?”

“Well, I came down here to tell you that his accomplice is waking up, so we are going to question him for more information on Blue’s plan. Do you want to join?” Bart asked.

They started leaving the room and Bart cleared his throat, and Matt realized he couldn’t tag along for the interrogation.

“I think it’s probably best if I stay down here, baby,” he said to MJ, dropping a kiss to her forehead. She nodded in agreement, but hated to leave him alone. Sometimes too much time to think was not a good thing, she knew from experience.

She followed Bart to the medical bay, where Oliver and Barry were already standing around the patient/prisoner. From the look on her father’s face, they weren’t getting very far.

When she got closer, she could hear the prisoner laughing from his bed.

“You will never stop him! And the harder you try, the more speed you will give him! And more. And more.  And more!” He broke into a fresh round of laughter.  MJ stepped into the room and got a closer look at the man. He appeared to be in his 50s, and had a large scar down the front of his face. When he caught sight of her, the laughter died in his throat. She wondered what sort of future she had that would strike fear in this man.

“So he steals my speed? So why did he run away at the first sign of trouble?” Barry asked.

“He’s like a battery…needs time to recharge before speeding again and wearing himself out. The faster he goes, the more energy he burns,” the man said, never taking his eyes off of MJ.

“How much time does he usually need to recharge?” Bart chimed in.

“Usually about twelve hours, and then he will be coming for you again,” he said, not able to stifle his giggle.

“Why did you join him? Why were you trying to kill the Green Arrow?”

“I don’t want to kill him…I want to kill _her_ ,” he said with menace pointing at MJ. “Killing him was just a means to that end.”

Oliver looked between them, confused.

“What does he mean?” he asked at the same time MJ got closer to the man. Bart and Barry stepped closer because the prisoner lunged against his restrains when she drew near.

“Why me? What did I do to you?”

“MJ…” Bart said, but the man started laughing again.

“You don’t know, and you’ll never know because I will stop it all before it happens!” The heavy laughter starts up again. “How ironic that your boyfriend nearly killed me now! You should have let him finish the job before he even started it!”

MJ closed her eyes against the man’s words, knowing that something between her and Matt had caused this man enough pain to seek revenge in the past. The man’s laughter grated on her nerves. No, she would not let Matt go too far down the trail that the Mirakuru tried to take him. They were too strong for that.

Suddenly angry, MJ leaned forward and whispered into the man’s ear.

“You didn’t go back far enough. Killing the Green Arrow would not get rid of me. And now you’ve failed.”

She stood up and walked out of the room, smiling slightly at the prisoner’s howls of rage. She felt her father grab her elbow and she turned to face him, not knowing what she would see there. MJ’s heart melted when she saw tears in his eyes and a look of wonder on his face.

“I think we need to talk,” he said in a choked voice. Tear’s filling her own eyes, MJ nodded. She pointed to an office on the opposite side of the lab. He started pulling her there, not letting go of her elbow. He called for Felicity to follow.

_Great, I guess we’re doing this now_ , she thought nervously. This would be the mother of awkward conversations.

“Oliver? MJ? What’s going on?” Felicity asked as she entered the room and Oliver slid the door shut behind her. He turned to MJ.

“Your ours,” he stated matter of factly, no hint of question in his voice. MJ had known he would be the one to figure it out.

Unable to find her voice, MJ just nodded and Oliver sat down in the nearest chair. The confirmation of what he already knew seemed to still jar him. Concerned, Felicity rushed to his side and knelt down to look into his face.

“Oliver, what is it?”

He took her two hands in his and turned her toward MJ. “She’s ours Felicity, yours and mine. Together.”

Felicity looked between Oliver and MJ confused. MJ just smiled at her, revealing dimples that Felicity loved on only one other person.

“OH!” she exclaimed, turning her head back to Oliver in shock. The two looked at each other in silence for a few moments, digesting the news and what it meant not only for the mission at hand, but for them as a couple.

Unexpectedly, Felicity let out a laugh, threw her arms around Oliver’s neck and kissed him. MJ rolled her eyes, having witnessed her parent’s affection on numerous occasions. They pulled away, smiling at each other before turning to take in their daughter with new eyes.

Suddenly, a frown creased Oliver’s eyebrow.

“MJ, what did you mean when you told him it was too late? The prisoner?” he asked.

MJ looked down at her hands. “Um…it means…um.  Felicity has something she needs to tell you.”

She looks up as Felicity gasps and puts her hands on her stomach.

Oliver looks at her in surprise. “Felicity?”

“Uh, yeah, remember that night with the Russian vodka? Well…I’m kind of pregnant.”

Oliver pulls Felicity into his arms and looks at MJ over her head. She grinned at him.

“Congratulations…it’s a girl!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed! Let me know what you think! Next chapter will go up next week. 
> 
> In the next chapter: Felicity obviously has lots of questions, and we will find out why MJ was not worried about telling her parents and messing with the timeline. Also, some training!


	3. Family reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity get to know their daughter. And obviously Oliver hates her boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No beta so all the mistakes are mine! Hope you enjoy this one.

Once her parents got over the shock of the news, they both tackled her with hugs. She was a bit surprised, because her father had said he wasn’t really a hugger back in his earlier days. Still, his hugs felt the same.

“So…I’ve got to ask…MJ? What does it stand for?”

Felicity beat her to the punch.

“Moira Jane, right?” she asked. Oliver turned to her in surprise when MJ nodded. “What? We were engaged! You would be hard pressed to find a woman in love and engaged in this world who has not thought of baby names. Moira for your mom, Jane for my grandmother.”

MJ couldn’t help but give a contented sigh when Oliver gave Felicity what she called the “Felicity Smile” – the one reserved just for her mom, and pulled her in for another hug.

They turned to her again and opened their arms. She crossed the room to them and they pulled her in for a hug.

“I have so many questions,” her mom said when they pulled apart, all of them wiping tears from their eyes.  “Do you have brothers and sisters? How old are you? Are you happy? Are you healthy?”

MJ laughed. “Whoa, slow down, Mom, you know I can’t tell you all that. Spoilers, remember?”

Her parents both stiffened when she called her mom, “Mom,” because they were hearing it for the first time.

“Oh, I guess that makes sense. So why are you even telling us?”

“Well, Dad kind of figured it out.”

Oliver was suspiciously quiet…but he looked up when the two usually talkative women noticed and stopped talking to stare at him.

“Dad, what is it?” MJ asked when she saw tears in his eyes.

“It’s just…you…this…I didn’t want this life for my kids, our kids,” he said, turning to Felicity. “I do what I do to make our city safe. Clearly I’ve made no difference if my daughter is still carrying on that mission 25 years later.”

“Oh, Oliver,” Felicity said, taking his hand. “Maybe, this doesn’t have to happen. Don’t get me wrong, MJ, you are a strong and beautiful woman and I’m amazed that you could even come from me, but maybe we can do things differently…”

“I knew you were going to say that,” MJ said, digging into her back pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. “My dad, er, you, gave me this note, told me to read it, and give it back to him someday. He said I would know when the time was right.”

Oliver slowly opened the note, and frowned as he read it. Felicity tried to peer over his shoulder to catch a glimpse. “What does it say?” she asked as he folded the note and tucked it into his pocket, deep in thought.

MJ looked at him nervously, waiting for him to speak.

After what seemed like an eternity, he stood up abruptly and started walking toward the door. He stopped and turned around. “You coming? We could probably get a couple of good hours of training before Cobalt Blue is recharged.”

She grinned and followed him, leaving a confused Felicity in their wake.

********

“Again!” Oliver shouted after he slammed Matt to the ground for probably the fifteenth time.

MJ offered a hand to help him up, and he scowled at her as he rose to his feet.

“You’ve got a little blood dripping out of your nose,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m glad you find this so funny. I told you that he hated me,” Matt said.

“You’re just mad because you still can’t take him, in our time or this one,” she said with a grin.

“Are you guys going to chat all day, or can we train some more?” Oliver said.

They had been in one of the empty rooms in Star Labs training for almost two hours. MJ had not been able to fight the grin on her face at her father’s surprise and impressed impression at her fighting skills. Even meeting a younger version of Oliver Queen, she still craved his approval.

But one thing he did not approve of – her choice of boyfriend. If he had been concerned about Matt’s issues before, he was doubly so now that he knew that MJ was his daughter. When Matt appeared in the training room, he brought up the issue again. It had taken sever repeats of “my life, my choice,” which made her mom cover her mouth to hold back a laugh, before he backed down.

Still, the air in the room was a bit icy, and he was taking out a lot of his aggression on the training mats. Matt, bless his heart, had taken it like a champ, but MJ suspected he was reaching his limit. She grabbed a paper towel and helped him clean the blood off his face, placing a soft kiss on his lips when she was done.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“I just love you. Thanks for putting up with my protective dad in growly mode,” she said, leaning in and giving him a longer, more passionate kiss. When they heard a throat clearing behind them, she giggled.

Matt leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “What do you think he would do if I grabbed your ass?”

“Probably put an arrow in yours,” MJ said with a laugh.

The two turned back to resume training, this time both of them teaming up and managing to knock the Green Arrow back a few steps. They didn’t have time to gloat because Bart, Barry and Felicity came into the room to interrupt them.

“I’m getting a little nervous because we haven’t heard from Blue in a while. Who knows how long it will take him to recharge, but based on my encounters in the past, we should have seen him emerge by now,” Bart said. “Either he’s drained more than we first thought, or he is up to something that I’m guessing will not be pleasant.”

“I’ve been running scans all over the city and haven’t come up with anything. No speedster activity of any kind,” Felicity said.

Bart slammed his fist into the wall. MJ felt unease settle in her chest. Bart was usually a happy-go-lucky kid and was rarely rattled, no matter what situation they got themselves into. To see him with such a grim look on his face was jarring. She reached over and laid a comforting hand on his arm. She was surprised when he pulled her into a bear hug.

“We need to come up with a plan of some kind. We just can’t sit around and wait for him to strike,” MJ said when she emerged from Bart’s hug.

“I had some questions about him after hearing what our not-so-welcome guest had to say,” Cisco said, entering the room with Caitlin.

“Like – why does he need to recharge when he is stealing your speed?” he asked Barry and Bart. “Bart, is there anything you can tell us about how he got his powers that can help us understand him?”

Bart shook his head.

“He just showed up one day, said he hated all of the Allen family and tried to kill me. And older Barry,” Bart said. “When he failed he started hopping through time trying again and again.”

“Why did you bring me this time?” MJ asked. “And not any of the others?”

“Because he said something about taking me out before I even began – I figured he was going to, uh Terminator me, as Cisco said, and I needed backup,” Bart said. He stared at his feet and shifted them. MJ knew he was keeping something out, but didn’t want to press him in front of the group.

“I noticed some sort of…device I guess…on his chest when you were fighting him,” she said. “Maybe his speed force comes from some external device rather than being part of his anatomy.”

“Ooooh!” Felicity exclaimed. “I think I might know what’s going on! He’s like a laptop battery!”

Everyone stared at her mom, confused, but MJ just smiled because she was used to her mom’s line of thinking.

“Like one that you always leave plugged in,” MJ said.

“Exactly! See, there is some of me in you! And here I thought you were all Oliver,” she said with a proud smile.

“Mom, you have no idea,” MJ said. Barry and Caitlin’s mouths dropped open as they were the only ones that didn’t know MJ’s heritage.

“So the battery on a laptop is meant to be charged in short bursts, but some people leave them on their chargers for hours continually, or even keep them plugged in while they are working at home,” Felicity said. “Every time they unplug after that, their battery life lasts less and less until eventually, it doesn’t work at all.”

Cisco caught on before the rest of the team.

“So if he is stealing power from the speedsters, it could be like he is plugged in. But the more he is relying on that power, the less he can function when he is away from it,” he said.

“I think we can work with this and come up with a plan,” Barry said.

“In a few minutes…” Felicity said as she rushed over to the nearest trash can and started hurling up her lunch. Oliver rushed over to her and held back her hair.

“Nice work, MJ,” Cisco said. “You’re making her puke from in there.”

MJ just looked at her parents and shook her head. “This is so freaking weird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I love your comments. :) The next chapter will be a switch in point of view to Oliver. Hurray! Coming up - the plan to deal with the villain, and what the heck was in that note?


	4. A baby changes everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a chapter from Oliver's point of view! He and Felicity finally have a talk about the whole pregnancy situation. Other stuff happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Hope you enjoy this update! 
> 
> So here's the thing: I'm doing NaNoWriMo and writing a different Olicity fic. I'm still planning on working on this story, but I may not always make my Thursday deadline. But I will try!

Oliver was grateful to everyone when they left the room so Felicity could be sick without an audience. MJ gave her mother a guilty look before she exited. MJ. His _daughter._ Oliver shook his head at that, still trying to come to terms with it.

Another round of throwing up had him turning his attention to Felicity. He held her hair with one hand and rubbed her back with the other. After what seemed like an eternity, Felicity finally was able to sit up. She leaned her head back against the wall, pulled her legs up to her chest and closed her eyes. Oliver took a few minutes to just look at her.

Even with her pale complexion and sweaty hair, she was so beautiful. Every time he looked at her, it felt like his heart seized in his chest. Before they were together, he had gotten really good at hiding his feelings. At keeping his “heart eyes,” as Thea called them, to a bare minimum.

But now that they had been together and he, like the idiot he was, had lost her, it proved more difficult to keep his feelings at bay. He had given her the space that she had asked for, and she was even with someone else now. But he could not, and would not, change how he felt about her.

And now that Felicity was pregnant with his child – it changed everything. They pretty much would be together again, he had no doubt about it now. But even now, he couldn’t push her. His unfailing optimism after they had first broken up had sent her running further in the opposite direction.

“I love MJ already, but I don’t really like her right now,” Felicity said with a groan.

“Feeling any better?” Oliver asked.

“Yes, thank you so much for sitting with me while I puke up my lunch,” she said.

“Well, I promised I would always be here for you, Felicity,” Oliver said with a laugh. “And besides, it’s my kid in there causing this.”

“That’s right! This is all your fault! And that vodka! I don’t like you very much right now either,” Felicity said.

He grabbed one of her feet, pulled off her pump and started to rub her arches. She let out a moan (which Oliver tried – and failed – to ignore as it sent a rush of warmth through him).

“OK, you are slightly forgiven,” she said. “So are you going to tell me what was in that note our daughter gave you? You know how I feel about mysteries.”

He smiled and pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her and watched as she opened it and read it’s contents.

_She’s going to choose this lifestyle whether you want her to or not. Like her mother taught her, it’s her life and her choice. Would you rather she enter this life on her own because we are stubborn, or would you rather she be trained by the best? By the way, don’t lie to Felicity anymore…it never works out well for you._

“I like this guy,” Felicity said with a laugh.

“Well, he is me,” Oliver said. “It gives me a headache to think about. From what Bart said, Barry keeps us all on task for not messing with the timeline any more than it already is…so I must have already received this note in MJ’s timeline. And then when I knew it was getting close to her coming back to our time, I wrote it back to myself.”

“Yikes…that’s a little bit too timey wimey, even for me and I’ve seen like every episode of Dr. Who,” Felicity said.

“So our daughter is a vigilante,” he said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, and she’s so much like you. It’s ridiculous,” Felicity sighed.

“Really? She reminds me so much of you. The babbling, the brains, the beauty,” Oliver said, prompting a blush in Felicity.

“She’s pretty amazing, though, right? We made her, Oliver!”

“Yeah…she’s…remarkable.”

Felicity’s phone started ringing. They both froze when they looked down to see Billu Malone’s name appear on the screen. She hit the ignore button and the two of them sat in silence for several minutes. The weight of everything he wanted to say and the tension in the room bore heavy on Oliver, until he could take it no more.

“Felicity, don’t you…”

“I know, Oliver! I know!” she cut him off angrily. He put his hands up to signal surrender.

“You know what?” he asked softly.

“I have to tell him…about the baby. About everything. I have to break up with him,” Felicity said, staring at the floor. “I know I have to. But I should do it face to face…not over the phone.”

Oliver sat frozen, wanting to ask so many questions, but afraid to do anything that could alter her train of thought. Because he liked what she was saying. He really, really liked it.

“You’re breaking up with him?” he finally asked.

“Oliver, we are having a baby together. Of course I’m breaking up with Billy,” Felicity said, sounding exasperated.

“We can still have a baby and not be together. I just want you to be happy,” Oliver almost choked on his words. He did want her to be happy, but with him, if he was going to be honest. Still, if Detective Malone made her happy, then he would step aside. Much as it turned his stomach. He would always be in her life because of their child, but they could just be friends…right?

He felt Felicity’s hand on his arm.

“Oliver…I am happy with you,” she said. “There’s no choice to make.”

“But what about…”

“Billy? I feel so awful about it. Ugh, I am the worst!” She said, burying her face in her hands.

“First of all, no you are not the worst. Second of all, talk to me, tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

“I never really loved him, you have to know that,” Felicity said through tears. “There could never be anyone else for me but you. I just was with him because after Havenrock…and everything...I just wanted to feel something…anything.”

Oliver felt the flicker of hope in his chest burst into a flame of joy.

“And to be honest…and this makes me the most awful person, but toward the end, I was only with him because I needed information out of the police department,” Felicity said through tears. “We haven’t even slept together in months. I think he knows that my heart isn’t completely in it, but is hoping it will be…someday.”

“Well, his hopes are about to be over,” Oliver said in a gruff voice, pulling Felicity into his arms. She nodded against his chest and he couldn’t help a grin from appearing on his face. But still, he had to be sure.

“Felicity…will you ever be able to forgive me? For all the lies I told? For not working with you as a partner and trying to do everything on my own?”

“Oliver,  I really forgave you a long time ago, but I was just not in a place where I could reach out to you. You were one of the walls I erected in my heart,” Felicity said. “I’ve never been more grateful for a drunken night in my life.”

“Me either,” he said.

When her phone rang again, she set her shoulders and told him it was time to break the news to Det. Malone.

“And after that…I’m going to find our daughter and work on this plan of hers,” she said. She stood up, got on her tip toes and planted a light kiss on the corner of his mouth. “We’ll talk more later, when I’m single again.

He smiled and nodded as she turned to leave the training room.

“Felicity?” he called as she reached the door. “If I have my way, you’re never going to be single again.”

She grinned at him.

“I’m counting on it,” she said as she slipped out the door, already dialing her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend’s number.

Oliver started fighting with the training dummy again, and tensed when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see MJ’s boyfriend, Matt standing there. He gritted his teeth when the young man nodded toward him and walked across the room to another training dummy and began his own workout.

He had tried to give the young man the benefit of the doubt because his daughter obviously loved him (although, but he knew from experience that mirakuru was too dangerous to be naïve about). It irked him that he was still adjusting to the concept of even having a daughter and he also had to get used to the idea of her dating someone.

If he was honest with himself, he had wanted to put an arrow in the kid’s butt when he kissed MJ. And what was worse – his daughter found his annoyance amusing. He punched the training dummy even harder.

“You don’t like me very much in the future either,” Matt said from the other side of the room.

“I’m not surprised.” His growly Arrow voice emerged unprompted for some reason when the younger man addressed him.

“Now I know that you hated me from the moment you saw me because you already knew I would sleep with your daughter,” Matt said.

Oliver ground his teeth at that. Was this kid intentionally baiting him? He continued to pound the training dummy.

“I love her, you know. And I would _never_ hurt her,” Matt said quietly. Oliver turned to the young man and saw a pleading look in his eyes. He recognized that face in some of his younger recruits to Team Arrow in the past. A yearning for someone to believe in them, to give them a chance. He wondered briefly what had happened in this young man’s life that brought him to this point.

But then he saw his daughter in the hallway, ready to enter the room and he hardened his jaw again.

“Sometimes, the people we love are the people we hurt the worst, even if it’s the last thing we would ever want to do,” he ground out as MJ approached. When she got closer, both men brightened their demeanor, but she narrowed her eyes at them, not fooled by their fake smiles.

“Are you boys getting along?” she said.

Oliver quickly changed the subject. “How are the plans coming along to beat Cobalt Blue?”

“Almost done. I won’t bore you with the details yet. It involves a lot of running on Barry and Bart’s parts and then when he is weakened, a lot of arrow shooting and punching on our parts…in a nut shell,” she said. “They are just working on figuring out the best location so that we have the advantage.”

Oliver nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but a sudden rush of air and flash of electricity interrupted him. He barely had a moment to register Cobalt Blue standing in front of him before he was gone again.

And MJ was gone too. Oliver’s heart seized. It took him several moments to start breathing again.

“Matt,” Oliver growled to the young man who was still shouting his daughter’s name in terror. “We _will_ get her back. And I will put an arrow through that bastard’s heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it. I love reading your comments! Next chapter: The team scrambles to find MJ and we finally find out why Bart always chooses her for a time traveling companion.


	5. The Crucible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for MJ doesn't last long, and when they find her it isn't pretty. Also Oliver is once again the most perceptive one and discovers some more surprising things about the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Sorry this took so long to update - I've been working on a NaNoWriMo project and now that it's done I can get back to this story. :) 
> 
> No beta, so any errors are mine. And there might be a few, as I'm been baking pies all day! 
> 
> Enjoy the story.

Oliver watched as Matt slammed his fists over and over again into the training dummy. The young man’s temper had been brimming to the surface ever since MJ was taken, and he knew he could not be calmed down fully without her by his side.

He had directed his energy toward the training dummies for now, as he and the rest of the team tried to figure out a way to find his daughter. He couldn’t believe he had just met his beautiful daughter and now he had lost her.

Felicity was distraught, as expected, but the real person who seemed near a meltdown was Bart. He was pacing the room with his super speed, totally freaking out about MJ’s kidnapping. He kept murmuring “this isn’t supposed to happen. This is not what happens. I have to fix it. I’ll fix it.”

Barry had tried to calm him down, but for once, the boy wouldn’t listen to the man he had called his mentor. Oliver had a few ideas as to why the young speedster was so upset, but he wasn’t ready to voice them yet.

The priority now was finding MJ. Cisco thought he had found a way to trace the electric signature that was coming off of Cobalt Blue’s speed force. They had tracked him to a warehouse on the other side of Central City, but the trail had ended there. Barry and Cisco were there now, looking for clues.

Oliver held a crying Felicity in his arms, as she wrapped her arms around her stomach.

“It’s so weird…she’s here, but she’s there. I can’t keep her safe. How will we keep her safe?”

“Like we do everything, together.”

“Oliver, it’s Barry, are you there?” The voice came over the comms.

“I’m here, did you find her?”

“We did! And she’s hurt, very badly. Tell Caitlin to get the med bay ready, I’m on my way.”

Felicity was already out of the room shouting for the doctor. Oliver heard the rush of wind to signify that Barry had arrived with MJ and he rushed to the med bay to see his daughter. The sight before him made him sick to his stomach. She was covered from head to toe with blood.

“Is it all hers?” he heard Felicity shout.

“I don’t know! I’m trying to find all of her wounds,” Caitlin shouted back in panic. She took a moment to look over MJ, her hands stilling at the woman’s stomach. “It’s hers alright. She has several stab wounds.”

She dedicated herself to trying to stop the bleeding, but she wasn’t getting anywhere.

“Barry, this is beyond my ability. You have to take her to the hospital,” Caitlin said. “Bart, you take Felicity and then come back for Oliver. She’s going to need a blood donation and one of them may be a match.”

Barry was out the door with MJ in his arms before anyone could say a word. Felicity and Bart weren’t far behind.  A minute later Bart came and grabbed Oliver and took him to the hospital. When they arrived, he puked. He would never get used to traveling by speed force. Never.

He followed Bart in, where they discovered that MJ had been taken into emergency surgery. Felicity was pacing in the surgical waiting room, her face ashen. Barry didn’t look much better.

“They tested Felicity’s blood and it wasn’t a match. They’re waiting for you at the nurse’s station,” Barry said.

Oliver followed where Barry pointed. And was pleased to discover that his blood type was a match. He was happy he could do something to help his daughter out at least. His first instinct in this situation was to go out and hunt down Cobalt Blue himself. But he had learned the hard way when Felicity was hurt that the place he was most needed was by his family’s side.

As he donated blood, he closed his eyes and said a prayer that it would provide what his daughter needed to live. He did not know much in this world, but he knew that she was one of his greatest legacies. Future Oliver would never forgive him if he let their daughter die on his watch.

After he donated and chugged down a glass of juice, he walked back into the waiting room. Felicity immediately sank into his arms and they sat and waited for news of their daughter.

When the doctor came out hours later, they all rose quickly to hear what he had to say.

“Are you her family?”

“Yes, we’re her parents,” Oliver said without thinking, and the doctor narrowed his eyes at them suspiciously. Then it dawned on him that they looked way to young to have an adult daughter.

“She’s adopted…” Barry covered for him quickly and the doctor nodded, seeming to accept that answer.

She’s alive…barely. The next 24 hours will be critical. Whoever did this to her concentrated the stabbing on her abdomen, nicking several internal organs. She lost a lot of blood, but thanks to you we were able to replenish her quickly,” the doctor said. “It took several hours of surgery to repair her internal organs. We will monitor and see if more surgeries will be needed. You need to also be prepared for the possibility that she may never be able to have children. There was severe damage to her uterus.”

They all stood silent for a moment to take in what the doctor was saying. Finally, Bart broke the quiet.

“What? That’s impossible!”

“I can assure you young man, it is,” the doctor responded. “I know this is difficult information to hear, but I can assure that we will do all that we can to make sure she makes a full recovery.”

Matt, who had been silent since he arrived at the hospital, stood suddenly.

“Can I see her?”

“Not for a while. She’s still in recovery and then we will move her to the ICU,” the doctor said. “After that it will be one visitor at a time. I will have someone let you know when she wakes up and is able to see people.”

The doctor left the room and everyone stared at Bart, who was freaking out.

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening. Did I just Flashpoint myself out of existence?”

Barry lifted his head at that.

“You know about Flashpoint?”

Bart nodded.

“Yeah, it’s what we call anytime one of us goes back in time and screws up the timeline,” he said, causing Barry to frown.

“Look, you’re a trendsetter, Barry,” Caitlin said bitterly. She was still bitter about the whole Killer Frost thing that had happened because Barry had altered their timeline.

“Wait, what do you mean…out of existence?”

Bart paled at that, not realizing how much he had said out loud to the group. Oliver could sense his unease.

“Barry, how about you and I take Bart out in the hallway and chat for a minute,” he suggested. Felicity and Matt both started to object, but a stern look from Oliver silenced them both. Felicity shot him a returning look that meant she would be getting any information out of him later.

Bart followed them into the hallway, looking terrified and upset. Oliver wished there was something he could do to make the boy feel better, but would not know where to start until they knew the whole story.

“Bart, is there something you need to tell us?” he asked gently. Since he had guessed MJ’s origins,he was fairly confident in his guessing now, but he wanted to give the young man a chance to tell them himself.

“It’s nothing, I can fix it. I have to fix it,” he said, starting to pace again.

Barry shot Oliver a concerned look.

“Bart…MJ is your mom, isn’t she?” Oliver came right out and said it. When Bart started sobbing and nodded, Barry froze in surprise.

“Wait…I thought Bart was my grandson,” he said.

“He is.”

“But if he’s MJ’s son…”

“He’s my grandson too.”

“So your kid and my kid make…”

“We’re not going to talk about that Barry,” Oliver said in his angry voice.

“But what about Matt?” Barry asked. “I mean, the two of them are obviously in love.”

Bart finally calmed himself down enough to answer.

“It…uh…doesn’t work out,” he said, shifting on his feet.

Oliver narrowed his eyes at the young man.

“It didn’t end well, did it? This whole Mirakuru thing?” Oliver asked.

“No, it doesn’t. But I’m not going to tell you more so please don’t ask me. And don’t tell her either,” Bart said. “You know better than anybody that we all have our crucible – the part of our journey that makes us the hero that we are. This is part of hers. As painful as it is and though you want to protect her from it, she needs it.”

The two men stared at the young speedster in shock. Not just about the information that he was both their grandsons’ but that his words struck such a chord with them. Both of them had gone through things that they had wished at the time had never happened to them, but they now embraced because it made them who they were. That the young man was wise enough to understand that concept, he must have seen a lot in his short life too.

Oliver recovered first.

“So Bart, if MJ can’t have kids, wouldn’t you be like, blinking out of existence right now? Does the fact that you’re still here mean that she’s fine?”

“It doesn’t really work like that,” Barry chimed in. “He could be a time remnant. When something major is changed, it creates a whole new timeline. He exists because he was created in his timeline, but if he were to go back to his future, probably no one there would have any idea who he was.”

Bart sank into one of the chairs in the hallway.

“I screwed up, Barry. This is the one thing you always warn me about,” Bart. “And I didn’t listen.”

Both older men sat down on opposite sides of him.

“Look, Bart, I’m the last person who can judge you about the consequences of changing a timeline,” Barry said. “I mean, Diggle still isn’t speaking to me because I turned his daughter into a son. All you can do is fix what you can and you’re going to have to learn to live with the rest.”

Bart pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in them.

“What I don’t understand is why you did this in the first place? If you’re not supposed to intervene in the past, why go to MJ at all?” Oliver asked.

“Well, it started out innocent enough. Cobalt Blue was targeting her, and my dad, in the past. So I first ran into her then,” Bart said. “But then, I just…I hadn’t seen her in so long and I missed her so much. I couldn’t stay away.”

“So she’s not alive in your time?” Oliver asked with a strain in his voice, not wanting to even have to think about the possibility of his daughter’s death before she was even born.

“Oh she’s alive…she’s just not around,” Bart said. “She and my dad got sent to another Earth. And we don’t know which one. We’ve been searching for years, but haven’t been able to find them yet. That’s why I’m living with Barry and Iris.”

Oliver nodded.

“I visit you and Felicity too, you know,” Bart said, then he smiled. “I think you’re still bitter that I’m a speedster and not an archer.”

“So was your dad…a speedster…like me?” Barry asked, clearly concerned that metahuman genes would be passed from generation to generation.

“I shouldn’t be telling you any spoilers. But no. He’s not,” Bart said.

“Well, this has been an interesting day for me,” Oliver said.

“Yeah, a daughter and a grandson all in one day,” Barry joked. “You’re going to need a long vacation after this.”

“You’re telling me.”

They turned and saw a nurse approaching them. She said that MJ was able to see people now. Oliver went in and told the group. Matt didn’t wait for anyone to decide who would be first. He just stood up quickly and followed the nurse out. She looked at Oliver for permission, because she knew he and Felicity were next of kin, so he just nodded his assent. He was worried now that he kind of knew what the future held with met, but he would keep his promise to Bart and not say anything. Although, every fiber in his being wanted to protect his daughter from future pain. It’s funny how he had known her for less than 24 hours, but would do anything to secure her happiness.

Felicity looked at him questioningly when he walked over to her, and he leaned in and whispered the news in her ear. Her eyes got as wide as saucers, and then filled with tears. He hugged her close, and suddenly, she was pulling away from him and rushing over to Bart. The young man looked surprised when she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. After he recovered, he closed his eyes and hugged her back tightly, tears streaming down his face.

Oliver’s family had grown in strange ways today, but he wouldn’t change anything about them for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now there's a Queen/Allen family tree! I hope you guys liked that twist. :) 
> 
> If you want to check out my story I wrote for half of my NaNoWriMo project, you can find the first chapter  here . It is a soulmate/dreamsharing Olicity AU and I am super excited about it.


	6. Road to recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As MJ recovers in the ICU, the one visitor at a time rule lets her get some quality one-on-one time with Matt, Felicity and Oliver. She learns some surprising things from her mom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I want to apologize anyone for the fact that I didn't give anyone a trigger warning for infertility issues in the last chapter. No one complained or anything, but as a sufferer myself, I can vouch for the fact that we don't talk about it very much. So if it brought up any bad feelings, I apologize. 
> 
> A lot of talking in this chapter and not really any action. Which is good, because MJ needs her rest. I absolutely love her talk with Felicity for some reason.

MJ woke up in a hospital bed with a feeling of deja vu. She needed to stop getting injured like this. She looked over to her left and saw Matt there, sound asleep. She saw streams of tears down his cheeks and knew that he had been crying. She reached out and grabbed his hand and he immediately woke up and looked around the room in panic.

“It’s OK, baby, I’m here,” she whispered. Her voice was dry and she sounded like a frog. She asked Matt for some water and she drank it greedily before she tried speaking again.

“How long have I been out?” she asked him.

“Three days,” Matt said quietly. She knew it must have taken a toll on him, keeping his mirakuru rage in check while she was kidnapped and injured. “You went into surgery a couple of times, too. They put you in a medically induced coma to let your body heal a bit. They took you off of it this morning, and you have been sleeping regularly ever since.”

“I didn’t wake up after the coma meds were taken off?”

“It took you a while to come out of it, and really you were awake for about ten seconds. You told Felicity her hair sparkled and then promptly fell back asleep,” he said. The corners of his mouth ticked up a bit at the memory. That lifted MJ’s spirits a bit.

“My mom was here?” she asked. Even though it wasn’t her mom from her time period, any girl really just wanted her mommy when she was hurt.

“Yeah, and your dad too. They only let one of us back here at a time, so we’ve been taking turns,” Matt said. “I’m just glad it was my shift when you finally woke up. I’ve been missing those blue eyes, baby.”

She gave him a smile, the best she could muster as pain finally started to permeate her consciousness. Now that she was fully awake, she was feeling the damage to her body.

“What is it?” Matt asked immediately.

“It’s hurting…pretty bad,” MJ said.

“Let me call the nurse. They will want to know you are awake again anyway, and they will probably give you some medication for the pain.”

“No! That will make my head fuzzy, and we need to focus on catching Cobalt Blue and getting home,” MJ objected.

“Emj, we haven’t seen anything from Blue since we found you. He must be laying low for a while. And you’re not going to go anywhere for a while. You have a lot of healing to do,” Matt said. “You nearly died.”

His voice broke when he said it and she reached over and squeezed his hand. That seemed to calm him for a moment.

“You have to do what you need to do to get better, honey, for me, please,” he begged.

She sighed. If there was one thing MJ hated, it was being incapacitated. She was not the type that liked to sit around and do nothing. But she knew that Matt and probably her parents were worried.

“OK, you can call for the nurse,” she said.

She was immediately rewarded by a rare smile from him as he scrambled out of his chair and out the door. Soon the nurse and doctor arrived and performed a variety of tests on her now that she was conscious. They also gave her a strong dose of pain medicine, which had her yawning quickly. She was reluctant to fall asleep because she had just woken up, but MJ was quickly losing that battle.

When she next woke up, her mom was sitting by her bedside. Felicity was engrossed in something on her tablet, and hadn’t noticed that MJ was awake. She took a moment to observe her mom in action. It was still strange to see her so young. And for her relationship with her dad to be in such a strange place. She could tell that they loved each other, but it wasn’t as solid…cemented as it was in her time.

Felicity looked up and sat straighter when she saw that MJ was awake.

“Hey there, sweetie, how are you feeling?” Felicity asked. “Whoa, that sounded very mom-like of me.”

“Well you are my mom, after all,” MJ said with a laugh, which she immediately regretted because it gave her a stab of pain. She hit the button the nurse had shown her to give herself more pain medicine, and she felt better almost instantly. Felicity was looking at her with a concerned face.

“I’m OK, it just hurts, you know?”

Felicity nodded.

“When I was in this hospital, in this same room ironically, after I got shot, they gave me one of those happy button thingies too,” she said.

“Oh yeah…I forgot about you getting shot! Really, you were in this same room?”

“Yeah, well, Oliver and I were engaged before that happened, for all of like five minutes, so of course I got the Queen treatment,” she said.

MJ’s eyes widened.

“You and dad were engaged before? And then you broke up?”

Felicity looked uncomfortable. “This is new information to you? I mean, we never told you about this story?”

MJ shook her head.

“Nope, as far as I know you guys got together, had me relatively quickly and haven’t been apart since. I had no idea you were even engaged before I came along. My mind is totally blown, and not because of the pain meds,” she said. “Or maybe in addition to the pain meds, I guess I should say.”

“That’s kind of crazy, because it was one of the most painful times in my life, breaking up, that is, with your father,” Felicity said.

“Tell me about it?”

Felicity shifted in her seat.

“Please? It’s not like I can go anywhere and it will help pass the time,” MJ begged.

Finally, Felicity gave in. She told about how she and Oliver had finally gotten together and had lived happily in Ivy Town for a year. MJ had objected during the part about Bali because I guess they had protested when she and Matt had wanted to go away last year to the same location.

Felicity told her about how she had been helping the team behind Oliver’s back while they were away, and how she was the one who had encouraged him to come back.

“He was done, he was out of this life, and I brought him back,” she said sadly. “We could still be living in Ivy Town now.”

At this, MJ grabbed her hand.

“That’s not true, Mom. He has had plenty of opportunities to give up this life, and he always comes back,” she said. “He even does give it up. But sooner or later, the Green Arrow is always needed. And he will never say no. It’s not in his nature.”

Felicity gave her a weak smile, and MJ knew that her mom still had a lot of healing to do in many issues. It was surprising to her, because in her timeline, Felicity was one of the most self-assured people she knew.

Felicity went on to tell her about the engagement, the shooting, and William. This surprised MJ quite a bit.

“William?”

“Yeah, you…uh…know about him…right? I’m not spilling any family secrets and getting you pissed at your parents, er us, am I?” Felicity asked.

“No! William is my brother! I’ve known him all my life,” MJ said, and it was Felicity’s turn to be surprised. “I’m just surprised that he was the reason you guys broke up. I wonder if he knows this.”

“Oh, honey, he’s not the only reason. Your dad lying to me about William was just the cherry on the top of a whole lot of communication issues between the two of us,” Felicity said.

“This is so weird to hear,” MJ said.

“Why?”

“Well, in my time, you and my dad are like so, in sync. You have this like eye thing where you communicate without even talking sometimes. It’s creepy, and annoying.”

Felicity smiled.

“Well, our communication has improved quite a bit in the last several months. So maybe we’ll get there one day,” she said.

“So are you guys back together? OOOOh, DID I GET MY PARENTS BACK TOGETHER?”

Felicity laughed.

“Well, you and Russian vodka, I guess,” she said. “Really, you coming here was a catalyst for us having a conversation we really needed to have. And, I broke up with my boyfriend the day you got here, so I guess you can have some credit.”

“Wait, what?”

“What?”

“You had a freaking boyfriend while you are pregnant with me?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Is dad even my dad?”

MJ started freaking out, which caused her heart rate to speed up, making the monitors go a bit wild.

“Whoa, whoa…calm down. Of course your dad is your dad!”

“But how do you know? Oh God, I can’t handle this,” MJ said.

“Well, without going into the details of my sex life that would probably scar you for life…I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Oliver Queen is your father,” Felicity said. “I have not been…intimate…with Billy for several months. We were on the breakup path anyway.”

“Ew, his name is Billy?”

“What’s wrong with Billy?”

“I don’t know, it just sounds…gross.”

Felicity laughed again.

“So, you grow up knowing William, huh?”

“Yeah, he’s my big brother,” she said, wistfully. “And actually, I kind of miss him today. He’s a doctor. He’s usually the one who patches me up.”

“This is nice to hear, because I wasn’t exactly keen on your dad’s plan to send William away for safety reasons,” Felicity said.

“Man, I’m going to have like a million questions for you guys when I get back,” MJ said, frowning. “If I get back, I mean.”

“Of course you will get back! You just have to heal some more and then you can go back to your time,” Felicity said. She had MJ’s hand in hers and was rubbing circles into her palm with her thumb. MJ smiled at their hands.

“You always do that when I’m sick, or hurt,” she said.

“Oh! My mother always did it for me when I was sick. I guess it is one of the mom habits I have,” Felicity said with a laugh.

“And I supposed I will do it someday to my kids too,” MJ said.

Felicity’s face fell at her words, her eyes filling with tears.

“What is it?”

“MJ, there’s something I need to tell you,” Felicity said, her voice breaking.

She stared at her mom for a moment, and then suddenly she knew where this conversation was going.

“I can’t have kids…can I? Cobalt Blue did something to me so that I can’t, right?”

Felicity looked surprised.

“You know?”

“Well, he said some things that indicated that it might be headed in that direction,” MJ said sadly.

“What sort of things?”

“If you don’t mind, I don’t really want to talk about that right now, Mom,” she said.

Felicity nodded in agreement.

“So no kids for me?”

Felicity sighed.

“They don’t know yet. They had to concentrate on your most critical injuries first. Once a lot of your swelling goes down, and they can move you out of the ICU, they will do some more tests to be sure,” Felicity said.

“So there’s hope?”

“There’s always hope, sweetpea.”

“You’ve always called me that, too.”

“See, I’ve totally got this mom, thing down. And here I was nervous,” Felicity said.

“You’re going to be fine. You are an amazing mom. But if one of your kids happens to use your tablet without permission and then drop it on the tile floor and shatter it, you should totally forgive her…or him,” MJ said.

“Oh God.”

“It’s fine, Mom.”

MJ’s eyes started drooping again, and she asked her mom to tell her more stories about dating her dad while she drifted off to sleep.

This time when she woke up, Oliver was sitting there. Unlike Matt and Felicity, who had been preoccupied while she was sleeping, her father was staring at her with an intensity should couldn’t interpret.

“Hi daddy,” she whispered softly, and Oliver’s shoulders seemed to lose their tension a little. His eyes softened.

“That’s kind of weird to hear,” he said.

“I can only imagine,” MJ said. “Blame it on the pain meds. I can’t call you anything else right now.”

“It’s OK. It’s nice. Strange…but nice.”

“So, has there been anything new out of Cobalt Blue?” she asked.

“No, he’s still being quiet. MJ, I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I’m going to need you to tell me what happened when you were kidnapped.”

“Why?” She asked as she shook her head at him. “I’m back safe and he’s not been around for several days. Why do we even need to go there?”

“MJ…”

“Dad, please. It’s not just that it is hard for me to talk about.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s going to be really hard for you to hear,” MJ said. “I know you are really new at this dad thing, but I can honestly tell you that hearing about your kids getting hurt is literally the worst thing for you. You’ve told me so yourself.”

Oliver closed his eyes.

“Are you telling me this happens often, you getting hurt?”

“Me…and others. And I wouldn’t say often, more like occasionally,” she said.

“That doesn’t make me feel very much better,” Oliver said.

He grabbed her hand.

“MJ, we need to know. I know it’s going to be tough for you to tell and for me to hear, but I need to know if there are any details that you might have that will help lead us to Blue, or give us any insight into his plans.”

She was quiet for a moment and Oliver returned to staring at her with intensity.

Finally, she gathered up her resolve to speak.

“I know why Cobalt Blue hasn’t been seen in a while. I think he believes he accomplished what he came here to do,” she said. “And then he left, probably to see if the results of his handiwork had his desired effects on the timeline.”

“And did it work?”

“You tell me…is Bart still here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! Drop me a comment and let me know what you think! Next chapter will be MJ's POV of her kidnapping, plus some father and daughter bonding.


	7. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ shares the story of her kidnapping with Oliver, and the team preps for the final battle with Cobalt Blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last chapter! Warning, as MJ remembers what happens to her, there is a lot of violence. I love MJ and Oliver in this chapter. Dad Oliver is my favorite, and I really hope we get to see it in cannon some day.

Oliver looked at MJ in surprise.

“You know about Bart? About…”

“The fact that he’s my son? Yes, I figured it out based on things Cobalt Blue was saying to me,” MJ said. “Now I know how you felt a few days ago. I’m way to young to start even thinking about having kids. And what that means for Matt and me.”

Oliver opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

“Don’t tell me, if Bart gave you the story of how he came to be, I don’t want to know,” MJ said. “I’m trapped in a tough spot between wanting things to work out between the love of my life and making sure that amazing kid comes into existence. I’m not sure having more information will help with that particular struggle.”

“You are remarkable, you know that?” Oliver said, a look of pride on his face. “How did you get so wise for being so young.”

“I have great parents,” MJ said, smiling at him.

“So what happened, MJ?” Oliver asked again.

She took a deep breath and began her story, starting with her being whisked out of the training room, away from her father and Matt.

_It happened before she could even register that it was happening. One minute she was there, and in the next the city was flying by faster than she could see. When they finally stopped, she didn’t even have a moment to prepare to fight against Cobalt Blue, her body so nauseous from the trip. She immediately started throwing up._

_She took a little bit of pride in the fact that some of it landed on the villain’s shoes. MJ took the moment of distraction to hurl herself at Blue, and she managed to get a few punches in before he grabbed her ponytail and used it to swing her and slam her into the wall. Pain radiated down her arm and leg._

_“You know, it is always funny to me how you hero types always think that you can win because you have such determination to do so. As if you will somehow get stronger and faster through sheer force of will,” he said angrily as he handcuffed her to the leg of the table. MJ took an opportunity to look around and saw that she was in an abandoned warehouse, but she couldn’t tell where. She needed to keep him talking so that the team could find her._

_“You know what’s funny to me? How the villains always think that they can win because their anger makes them stronger, or some bullshit like that. Oh and I almost forgot the one about how you have nothing left to lose, so that makes you less cautious in a fight,” MJ said._

_“The only difference is, my girl, is that while my anger does make me stronger, your blind faith in your abilities makes you weaker,” he sneered._

_“So if I’m so weak, if we are all so weak, why go to all the trouble to take us out? Why all the hate for Bart and his family?”_

_“Is this the point where you want me to give you a long monologue of my motives while you come up with a plan to escape? Well, that’s not going to happen,” Cobalt Blue said. “The short story is that I’m tired of Mr. Allen always interrupting my plans. And the truth is, if we had been raised differently, I could very well be the hero and he the villain.”_

_“So you’re jealous. Typical bad guy excuse,” MJ said._

_“Are you deliberately trying to make me mad? The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean?”_

_“I can’t believe he never told you, or you never figured it out. You Queens were always so damn insightful.”_

_“What are you talking about?”_

_“It doesn’t matter. It’s time to get my whole Bart Allen problem taken care of once and for all,” Cobalt Blue said, pulling out a huge knife._

_MJ was pretty good at keeping her cool under pressure, but she could feel the panic starting to build. She strained at her cuffs and scrambled to find a way to escape._

_“So you’re going to kill me now? Because I’m friends with Bart?”_

_“Oh, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to make a way for Bart to have never been born. And then I’m going to leave you alive so he can see how much pain you are in and know that it is all his fault.”_

_STALL, STALL, STALL, THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU, DO WHATEVER YOU CAN – MJ’s brain was shouting at her._

_“But wh…” she started to say, but her words were cut off by a rush of blinding pain as a knife entered her abdomen. Over and over, he stabbed. MJ stopped feeling the individual stabs after a while, her mind numb and teetering close to unconsciousness. Finally, he stopped and looked down at her. He smiled at his handiwork, before using a device on his chest to open a dimensional portal._

_With one more gleeful look at MJ, he leaped through. MJ tried to stay awake, she really did. She even tried to get out of the handcuffs, but she could not get herself move more than a little bit. She started to feel dizzy and could see her blood covering the floor._

_Oh God, I’m dying, she thought._

_She laid her face down on the ground, her warm blood coating her cheek. She forced herself to keep her eyes open. She needed to stay alive until they came for her. She kept her mind alert by reviewing the conversation she had with Blue before the stabbing. Apples falling far from trees. Stabbing her making it so Bart never existed._

_Her world was starting to get fuzzy. She thought she heard someone shouting her name in the distance and footsteps approaching, but darkness was overtaking her._

_MJ’s last thought before submitting to the oblivion was that Bart Allen may just be her son._

As MJ finished her story, she looked over at Oliver. He had his face buried in his hands, and she could tell he was forcing himself to take deep even breaths. It was a calming technique he had taught her and she in turn had taught Matt.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

He looked up her and gave her a little half smile.

“Am I OK? You’re the one who was stabbed repeatedly.”

“Dad…have you ever been stabbed?” MJ didn’t know why she asked that question, but she just wanted his attention away from her situation for a minute so they both could catch their breath.

“Yeah, I have.”

“With a knife?”

“A few times. And once with a really big sword.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, here’s the scar,” he said, lifting his shirt. “I don’t show you my scars when you were growing up?”

“Well, we’ve seen them a lot, but you don’t like to talk about them,” MJ said. “Except that one…we all know you got bit by a shark.”

“How did that story come up in conversation?”

“Well, the boy that took me to prom had the audacity to ask you tons of questions about the island. And then implied that there was nothing you could do if he brought me home late, because he was bigger than you,” MJ said, smiling. “You lifted your shirt and showed him the shark bite and said that you were the one that made it out of that fight, but you were game if he was willing to test his luck.”

Oliver threw his head back and laughed. MJ loved it, because it reminded her more of the dad from her time.

“And what did he do after that?” Oliver asked.

“Well, he ran out the door and did not take me to prom. You had to drop me off. I was so embarrassed,” MJ said.

Oliver again was laughing so hard that tears were coming out of his eyes, causing her to narrow her eyes at him.

“It is really difficult to have a dating life when your dad is…well, you,” MJ said, causing Oliver to laugh more.

Both of them were in a much better mood now, the pain that had followed the story of her kidnapping had faded. Oliver soon left her and Matt came in to keep her company. The pattern remained for a while. She would doze off because of her pain meds, and every time she woke up a different person would be sitting there.

The only person who didn’t come to see her was Bart. While that hurt MJ a little, she was glad for the time to come up with a game plan for what she would say if she saw him. Oliver had told her that Bart asked them not to let her know his parentage, so she wondered if she should keep her knowledge to herself. But still, now that she knew that he was her son, she probably wouldn’t be able to help looking at him differently. They had been such good friends for so long, he was bound to notice.

What a stupid mess time travel created.

MJ remained in the ICU for several more days, and then they finally moved her to a step-down unit, where she could have more visitors. She was anxious to get out of the hospital, but she also realized she really had no home to go to in this time period anyway. Oliver and Felicity were staying at a hotel. Matt had been sleeping on the the chairs in the waiting room or at her bedside, refusing to leave the hospital.

She didn’t really want to return to her time until the Cobalt Blue situation was handled, but he had not made an appearance since her stabbing. When she had finally healed enough to be discharged from the hospital, she learned that Barry and Joe had set up a room for her at their house. She was glad to be able to have a place to rest, but was very homesick.

Having Felicity and Oliver there helped, but she missed her real parents, or at least their older selves. Getting to know the younger versions of them was amazing (and eye opening at times), but she had been through a trauma, and she longed for the comfort of the parents that remembered tucking her in at night.

A week after she was discharged, she went to a follow up visit with her doctor. She seemed to be healing fine, and it looked like everything was in working order…but whether or not she would be able to carry a child to term was up in the air.

Bart finally came to see her, and she opted to pretend like she didn’t know anything. Whether or not he knew that she was lying, he didn’t let on. They both seemed content to try to pretend things were the way they were before, but there was an uncomfortableness between them. MJ didn’t like it.

They finally got their answer on the whole Cobalt Blue thing when he suddenly reappeared in town a week later. His first stop was the house where MJ was staying. She awoke to see him standing over her bed and she let out a scream. Luckily, the team was gathered for dinner downstairs and it was a mere second before Barry and Bart came through the door and knocked him out the window.

Oliver, Matt and Felicity ran up to make sure MJ was OK, before they decided to go ahead with the plan that they had before. They connected with Bart and Barry on the comms and the two agreed to run Cobalt Blue through the town for as long as they could so that they could drain his energy. Meanwhile, Oliver, Matt and Felicity went to the stadium (where they had first gotten the upper hand on Blue), to set up a trap for him so they could defeat him when he was weak.

MJ agreed to run the comms. The others had objected, saying she needed to rest and the stress wouldn’t be good for her, but she had unleashed her loud voice that she had definitely inherited from Felicity and they finally assented.

As they left, MJ popped open her mom’s laptop and cracked her knuckles. It was finally time for them to take out the bastard to had tried to kill her and her future son. He had definitely messed with the wrong family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! Drop me a comment and let me know what you think. 
> 
> This story is almost complete, but I have a short sequel started that is set IN THE FUTURE when we get to see what goes down with MJ and Matt. And more time travel, of course. ;)


	8. All (kind of) good things must come to an end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final battle with Cobalt Blue! And farewells all around that might get you in the feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Happy Holidays!  
> First of all, I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this story. I got hit hard by cold and flu season and then Christmas happened.  
> Second, this is my first attempt at writing action, so I apologize in advance.  
> Third, thank you all for sticking through this story! This was my first multi-chapter fic and I have had so much fun and learned so much writing it! The scene between Bart and MJ in this chapter is one of my favorite things ever.

MJ listened in as Barry and Bart played a cat and mouse game throughout the city in an attempt to drain his power. They were expertly letting Cobalt Blue believe that he had the upper hand and could not be caught, even though they were letting him continue to run on purpose.

When they got the go ahead from the team at the stadium, they finally sped up and between the two of them had Blue cornered. They exchanged a few punches and heated words (mostly mocking him for failing to eliminate the Allens despite all his efforts), and suddenly Cobalt Blue was in pursuit of Bart. He strategically led the chase on several laps through Central City before finally arriving at the stadium.

Bart led Cobalt Blue on several laps through the stadium seating before the two were finally face to face on the field.

“I take it you didn’t find the results that you wanted when you went back to the future?” Bart sneered at Blue.

“You’re family is annoyingly resilient,” Cobalt Blue said. “Not only did your mother manage to survive, but she healed enough to somehow still have you.”

“You know, there are some events that are set in time, that cannot be changed, or so I’ve heard,” Bart said.

“I’m beginning to think that you may be one of them,” Blue said angrily. “So if I can’t remove you from existence, at least I can just kill you now.”

He lunged for Bart, but was unable to make it before an arrow pierced his shoulder. Cobalt Blue cried out in pain, and tried to turn quickly, but was immediately shot in the other shoulder by a rifle, powered by Matt on the opposite side of the field as the Green Arrow.

Cobalt Blue immediately tried to run away, but was surprised to discover his energy was almost depleted. He only made it to the endzone before Bart and Barry both caught up with him.

“You can’t escape, Blue, why don’t you just surrender and we will lock you up at Star Labs where you can’t hurt anyone anymore,” Barry said.

“Or we can just kill him now,” Matt said under his breath, but unfortunately they all heard him on the comms.

“That is never our first choice,” Oliver said.

Cobalt Blue just started laughing at them.

“That is why you are always so weak. Why people like me will never stop being afraid of trying to take you all out,” he said. “Because you are not willing to do what it takes to eliminate a threat.”

“Well, it seems that no matter how many of you come, we always win, so I will stick with our game plan,” Barry said.

“You guys will not always be together,” the evil speedster sneered. “And someone, someday is going to surprise you and kill one of you.”

Joe West took the opportunity to start putting Cobalt Blue in handcuffs, but the villain suddenly had a burst of strength. He elbowed Joe in the face and grabbed the man’s gun. With a burst of speed he rushed forward and overpowered Bart, holding the gun to his head. Bart could hear MJ and Felicity reacting over comms, but he drowned them out, focusing on how to get out of Blue's hold. 

“This ends now, Impulse,” Cobalt Blue said, addressing Bart by his hero moniker.

A loud screech blasted through the stadium, followed by Felicity’s shout of “Boo-yah!” over the loudspeaker. Blue was momentarily distracted enough that he pulled his hand away from Bart a few inches. Matt took the opportunity to aim his rifle and shoot the evil speedster right between the eyes. He fell to the ground in a slump.

Bart just stood there for a moment, staring at him. “I can’t believe it’s finally over,” he whispered.

“You did good, Bart. We’re safe now. We’re all safe,” MJ said in the comms.

“Thanks, mom,” he said back, not even caring that the conversation between them had never happened. Barry and Joe disposed of the body while Oliver, Felicity, Matt and Bart went back to the house to see MJ.

When Bart saw her, he rushed to her, swept her up in a hug and started sobbing. The rest of the group stood in the doorway but backed away slowly, sensing that the two needed some time.

After several minutes, Bart finally stopped crying, but didn’t pick his head up off of MJ.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because all this time…we’ve been friends, I’ve been coming to see you and I’ve never told you the truth about who I am…who you are,” Bart said.

“Well, to be honest, if you had told me the truth, I probably would have freaked out a little. Or a lot,” MJ said with a chuckle.

“But you told Oliver and Felicity and they were fine,” Bart said.

“Well for one, Felicity is already pregnant with me so my existence is not really a shocker,” MJ said. “And my parents aren’t together, but they definitely have feelings for each other so them being married in the future is not really that much of a stretch.”

“I’m definitely not pregnant with you yet. And your dad, although we used to run around in our diapers together, is not really on my radar as far as potential baby daddies.”

Bart laughed at that.

“MJ, about Matt…”

“I don’t want to know,” she said.

“But…”

“No, I don’t. It’s bad enough that I know that either we don’t work out or I’m not always faithful to him since you exist, but I don’t want to know the details. You and I both know that messing with the future is very dangerous,” MJ said.

“But if you know, then maybe you could…”

“Bartholomew Whatever-your-middlle-name-is Allen, do not finish that sentence.”

“But…”

“Do you think for a minute that I would put my happiness before your very existence? You may not be even a twinkle in my eye yet, but I am your mother, for goodness sakes,” MJ said. “And I must not be a very good one to you if you don’t know this about me.”

Bart looked up at that.

“You were…are…an amazing mother,” Bart said.

“Am I dead? In your time?”

“No…you are just somewhere where I can’t see you right now,” Bart said.

“So you missed me and wanted to spend time with me? Hence the time travel adventures, huh?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“It’s actually kind of sweet,” MJ said. “I don’t know where I am in your time period or how long I’ve been gone, but I do know two things. The first is that you are an amazing boy and I’m already proud to be your mother.”

Bart started crying again at her words.

“And the second…friend or son, or whoever you are. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Bart whispered through his tears. The both of them sat crying for a while. Finally, when they calmed down, Bart got up and got the rest of the group. They had ordered a pizza to celebrate their victory over Cobalt Blue.

Their party was bittersweet though, because they all knew that it was time for the three from the future to return home. They spent as much time as possible just hanging out, enjoying the peace. MJ enjoyed hearing stories from her parents about their past that they had not felt comfortable sharing when she was growing up. Like she very much was looking forward to begging her mom to teach her to count cards in poker and ask her dad about his peeing on a cop car.

They stuck around for a few more days while MJ healed a bit before the journey. Oliver and Felicity sat with her every day, and Bart was usually nearby. He was stocking up on the carbs, because time travel was apparently very draining. Joe said that the neighbors were starting to get suspicious of the amount of pizza boxes in their trash, so Bart and Barry had taken to leaving them in recycling bins all over Central City.

When the day arrived, they all assembled at Star Labs so they could say goodbye to the whole team. Cisco was delighted to hear that he contributed greatly to MJ’s knowledge of pop culture growing up. Caitlin gave her some last minute medical advice for the care of her wounds.

Bart and MJ both gave hugs down the line of people, while Matt just basically gave everyone a nod of farewell. When they got to Oliver and Felicity, her father gripped Matt’s hand a little too tight while shaking it.

“Matt, thanks for all your help in saving my family,” Oliver said gruffly.

“Well, maybe you can be a bit nicer to me when we first meet this time around,” he replied.

“Not likely. I still know you are dating my daughter,” Oliver said. “And that mirakuru situation you have is going to be a problem.”

“I will never hurt her,” Matt whispered. “Never her.”

Oliver looked at him with sad eyes, knowing that may not be the truth, but he accepted the young man’s words and made a vow to himself to keep an eye on the man in the future. He may not be able to change everything that happens to his daughter, but he was going to be there for her when she went through her crucible.

Matt earned a hug from Felicity, which he uncomfortably returned.

MJ stood before Oliver, not knowing what to say.

“I’m going to admit, getting a note from my future self was probably one of the strangest experiences of my life, and I’ve seen a lot of crazy things,” Oliver said, chuckling.

MJ smiled gave him a bear hug, causing her to wince a bit at the pain from her scars.

“I know you don’t always think you are when I’m growing up, but this is me telling you that you are an amazing dad,” she whispered in his ears. “You are seriously the best man I know and my goal every day is to be like you.”

Oliver pulled back in surprise, his eyes tearing up.

“And you’re an amazing woman, and I can hardly believe that I helped make you. I’d say you are a little bit of me, and a lot of her,” he said, nodding toward Felicity, who just shook her head at him. “I’m going to miss you, more than you know.”

“Yeah, but we get to see you, in your tiny form, later this year,” Felicity chimed in, unable to hold back her tears. “And I can’t wait.”

MJ gave Felicity her hug.

“Thanks for pulling out the mom skills a bit early for me,” she said. “It was amazing to get to know you before you were just 'Mom.' Not that you’re just a mom, but you're ‘Mom’ to me and not really Felicity. Wait, that may not make sense.”

Everyone in the room laughed at their ramble, which served its purpose to break the melancholy mood . They went into the speed training room, which would give Bart enough space to get to the velocity he needed to bring them home. With one final wave and smile, MJ grabbed onto Bart and he sped them through a time portal.

They landed in the Arrow bunker, and her father and mother were standing there waiting for them, looking less than pleased.

“Bart, you brought my daughter back injured,” Oliver said sternly. Bart hung his head with guilt, but MJ squeezed his hand.

“Hey, my life, my choice, remember?”

Felicity laughed at this and rushed forward to hug her daughter.

“Are you OK? Does it still hurt? You need to lay down,” she said, and MJ had to admit that her mom fussing over her was like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

“I’ll be OK, Mom, just no missions for me for a while,” she said.

“A long while,” her mother responded.

“OK, fine, a long while,” she consented.

Matt stood there for a while, uncomfortable. Oliver looked at him with knowing eyes as the two nodded toward each other.

“Emj, I’m gonna head home. I could use about 24 hours of sleep and I’m sure you want some quality time with your parents,” Matt said. He barely had time to hear her answer when he hurried out of the bunker. Bart said goodbye to him, but he didn’t even look in the boy’s direction. MJ wondered for a moment how much about Bart he had put together. That would probably be a problem later, but she was honestly too tired to deal with it today.

Bart cleared his throat.

“I have to head out too, MJ,” he said quietly.

“OK. I wish I could say this adventure was a fun one, but well…” she pointed at her stomach. “When will I see you again?”

“You know I can’t tell you when I’ll be born!”

“No, not baby you. I mean _you_ you,” MJ said.

Bart looked at the ground for a moment, then over at Oliver. The two seemed to have a wordless conversation before the young man nodded at his grandfather.

“I think this will be the last time I bring you on an adventure,” Bart said sadly.

“What? No! This can’t be the last time we see each other!”

“But that’s just it, MJ, it won’t be,” Bart insisted. “You are my mom, and I’ve been so grateful for the time we’ve spent together, but now that Blue is defeated I really need to focus my time on finding the version of you from my time period. You are out there somewhere.”

Tears filled MJ’s eyes, but she tried to understand where he was coming from.

“It’s time for me to stop living in the past and appreciate the life I have now,” Bart said. “And if there is anything I learned from this trip is that too much time travel is very dangerous. I almost lost you…and myself even. We can’t risk that again.”

MJ pulled him in for a hug.

“Stay safe and don’t make any stupid decisions without me,” she said.

“OK, I’ll make sure to wait until I find you and make stupid decisions with you,” Bart said with a grin. “I’m going to rip off the Band-Aid now. I’ll see you later, mom.”

Before MJ could even react, Bart zipped away and vanished into another time portal. She cried for a few minutes while her parents wrapped her in an embrace.

“Was this how it felt for you? When I left you back then?”

“Yes, it probably is.”

“But we’re going to be OK, right?”

“Yes, we are.”

Finally, MJ pulled back from her parents’ embrace.

“So Mom…you were ENGAGED to Dad and then broke up with him? And Dad – you LIED to her about William?”

“Well, it wasn’t really a lie, I just didn’t tell her.”

Both ladies leveled with a death stare and he threw his hands up in defeat.

“I was wrong and I apologized profusely,” he said, and both ladies seemed to calm down a bit, although MJ kept giving him a side-eye look.

“Why didn’t you guys tell me all this stuff? I got to hear so much! About your past missions, your relationships, the counting cards, your time on the island…”

“Because we already told you,” Felicity said.

“What?”

“We remember telling you all those things, so we didn’t tell them to you growing up,” Oliver said. “Those were always stories for when you were older. And we did tell you when you were older, just not in the way you thought we would.”

“This timey wimey stuff is so trippy,” she said. “It gives me a headache.”

“Us too,” her parents said in unison.

"And I totally get to tell my brothers about all your shenanegans," MJ said. The three laughed as they left the bunker. Although MJ longed for her own bed, she knew that she would probably crash at her parents place for some much-needed TLC. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it folks! Thanks for your support! 
> 
> You may notice this that I made this part of a series. I have a few chapters already written about MJ in the future (and there is some Olicity timetravel involved with that one too), so I should be posting the first chapter either later today or in the next few days. If you subscribe to the series, I'm sure you will get a notice. I'm also bouncing around an idea for another story of Bart's quest to find MJ in his timeline.
> 
> ETA: The first chapter of the sequel has been posted: [The Crucible](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9096061/chapters/20679457)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! I will try to post every Thursday or Friday. FYI Cobalt Blue is a character from the comics, but Matt is an original character.


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